This invention refers to devices to shift the stops of rail vehicle bodies or coaches with bogies when they are entering a curve, and to a rail vehicle body with bogies.
Moving equipment in general, when running on a curved track or rail, are naturally subjected to a lateral thrust towards the outside thereof (due to the centrifugal force) which, in the case of railway vehicles, leads to a tendency to tilt towards the outside and for the bodies to swivel in the same direction. The pendular type suspension developed by the applicant for the family of Pendular Talgo trains (which is described, for example, in the applicant's Spanish patent 424615 as “pendular suspension system”) succeeded in reversing the direction of this swivel such that, in these trains, the vehicle bodies, when running along curves, naturally tilt “towards the inside” of the curves. This makes it possible to considerably reduce the lateral force to which people who are traveling inside the vehicle bodies are inevitably subjected when they pass through the curves.
Coaches equipped with bogies have a lateral clearance between the sides of the bogie frame and a lower part of the body that is located in the interior cavity bounded by the frame of that bogie. To prevent the coaches from tilting on undergoing movements due to lateral forces (e.g., when traveling along a curve), lateral stops are placed in the bogie frame that limit the lateral movement of the body, or relative movement of the body with respect to the bogie.
When running along a curve at low speed, especially vehicles equipped with pendular suspension, the centrifugal force is very small and does not offset the natural movement towards the inside of the curve that, for example, is characteristic of this suspension; therefore, in practice, the body shifts towards the inside of the curve. The lateral shift of the body towards the inside of the curve should be accounted for when designing the body dimensions so it can conform with the required outside gauge and thus allow for operation without any interference. This means that, for practical purposes, the width of the coaches can be reduced.